Cold Call Strategy

Tired of blank stares when you ask students to complete a math activity after you’ve taught the concepts?

I was too.

My first year teaching went a little like this: direct instruction, worksheet, blank stares, chaos, feeling tired, defeated, and worthless.

My second year of teaching I began utilizing randomized formative assessment (a cousin to cold call with some very intentional differences) as a way to check for understanding throughout my lesson and let me tell you... it changed everything for me and my kids!

However, whenever you're not relying on volunteers who already know the answers to answer your questions during class, it can feel a little anxiety provoking.

So in this blog post we'll talk about how to use randomized formative assessment well in our 6-12 math classes with students who struggle.

What is randomized formative assessment

It's a system to randomly collect feedback as you go through your lesson so that you catch misconceptions and gaps in real time, instead of weeks later during a quiz. We use it modify our teaching in the moment to meet the needs of our students.

Randomized formative assessment misconceptions

Not building a safe community: I cannot stress this enough, if you haven’t taken time to build community, do not jump in with randomized formative assessment. Only use randomized formative assessment if students feel safe to make mathematical mistakes in front of you and their peers. If there is laughing or snickering when students share an answer or especially when they share an incorrect answer, your classroom is not ready for randomized formative assessment. If teachers do not create the safe community students need before implementing randomized formative assessment, you run the risk of triggering past math trauma, igniting math anxiety, or worse, creating math trauma for students.

Not using it consistently: While it might feel contrary to what you think will happen, research has found that the more you use strategies like randomized formative assessment, the more voluntary participation will receive (Dallimore 2012). So I suggest going all in with randomized formative assessment if you teach students who have been historically unsuccessful with mathematics. Lots of teachers ask open questions, expecting a choral response, but in reality it’s either completely silent, full of awkward wait time, or the same three students shouting answers. Other times teachers ask questions and expect students to raise their hands to answer, but we all know in a classroom full of students who struggle you’ll get the same 3-5 hands for every question while everyone else zones out leaving you to feel like you’re talking to yourself all period long. Use randomized formative assessment for each question you're temped to ask for a choral response and you’ll never battle these participation woes again.

Not breaking down questions: Do not use randomized formative assessment to have one student walk through an entire problem. Instead, break the problem into as many small questions as you can and use randomized formative assessment to call on different students for every one of them. When I see teachers use randomized formative assessment to ask one student to walk through an entire question I can feel the student’s anxiety skyrocket. When I see a teacher call on one student for the first step, another for the next, and so on, I feel the class settle into a cadence and comfort.

Accepting “I don’t know”: If you allow one student to say “I don’t know” and just accept it and move on, you will never see success with randomized formative assessment. So what should you do when we get that response (because you absolutely will)? First, attempt to scaffold back the question to something the student can answer. For example, if you’re asking for the first step of solving 2x - 5 = -6 and you get “IDK” you could ask, “I want to move the -5, what’s the opposite of -5?” If that doesn’t work, keep scaffolding back as much as you can so that the student can experience success.

Believing you’re good at randomly calling on students without a physical system: Many teachers think they are good at randomly calling on students without using cards or popsicle sticks with student names so they don’t need to use a physical system. The issue with this is two fold. On one hand implicit bias may be at play and you may be subconsciously calling on specific students more often. Maybe you’re calling on boys more often, maybe you’re calling on white students more without knowing it, maybe you’re subconsciously choosing students who you think will get the question correct. Using a randomized physical system is the only way around this. Secondly, you have a million decisions to make as a teacher each day, deciding who to call on and being frustrated that it’s the same five students who participate in your class doesn’t need to be on the decision list!

How to use randomized formative assessment

Now that we've looked at the misconceptions, let's talk about a few tips for how to use randomized formative assessment well.

Step 1: Community building activity

If you teach students who struggle with math, there can be a lot of fear and anxiety around using randomized formative assessment in your classroom. I highly encourage you to use it as a community building activity first. For example, pass out index cards to your students and ask them to write their name largely in the middle of the card then decorate the card with drawings or words of their favorite teams, activities, music, etc. Have them share their cards with their classmates before collecting them to be used as your visibly random name generator for when you begin using randomized formative assessment.

Step 2: Use the structure without math

Do not skip this step! Your students will shut down if you just start asking rapid fire questions about math and using your cards from step 1. Instead, use the cards to ask students to introduce their partner to the class or to get needed supplies for their group.

Step 3: Use it with math

Once you’ve shown your students how you plan to use randomized formative assessment (step 2), you’re ready to try it with mathematics. I suggest trying it with an activity with multiple correct answers to start like which one doesn’t belong. Post the image, then use the cards to call on students to share a reason why one of the images doesn’t belong. Do not take volunteers. Only rely on the cards to get participation. Then you can use it with any math. Try to ask as many little questions as possible so you can get through your entire deck of cold call cards at least once per period. For example, you can ask

• Q: What do I do first to solve 2x - 10 = 4? (add 10 to both sides)

• Q: What do I get when I add 10 to both sides? (2x = 14)

• Q: What do I do next? (divide by 2)

• Q: What do I get when I divide by 2? (x = 7)

• Q: ___, do you agree? I get 7?

We’ve just gotten to hear from 5 different students in one simple problem! When was the last time you had 5 students actively participating in one problem during class?

Step 4: Be ready for students who don’t want to participate

This is one of the main reasons teachers tell me they are hesitant to use randomized formative assessment in their classrooms. If you’ve built a classroom culture where students know they can make mistakes and not get laughed at, you’re going to be fine. Your students will participate. Side note: if you want tips about building that kind of classroom culture you can check out the resources here. But if you still get some students who aren’t bought into your structure, tell them that participating this way is your expectation. Remind them that they don’t have to get the question right, they just need to try. If they still won’t participate, ask them to step to the door of your classroom and have a one on one conversation with them when it’s convenient for you about why they don’t want to participate in this way.

Step 5: Be ready for "I don't know"

This is the second most popular reason teachers tell me they don’t want to use randomized formative assessment in their math classrooms. Similarly to step 4, if you’ve built a classroom culture where students feel safe to make mistakes, this won’t be an issue for you. But if you do get an “IDK” when using your cards, try to break down the question to be even more basic so the student feels some amount of success, but DO NOT allow “IDK” to be an acceptable answer because then everyone will use it to get out of participating. For example, if you ask, “Sebastian, what do I do first to solve 2x - 10 = 4?” and he responds with a shrug and, “I don’t know.” You can ask something like:

• What might I do?

• Do you have any guesses at what I might do?

• We need to move this -10. What’s the opposite of -10?

If he’s really digging in with IDK you can also call on another student for the answer then come back to Sebastian to repeat the answer the next student gave. That’s a last resort option.

Ready for more?

Check out my book, Teaching 6-12 Math Intervention, or attend my FREE Math Intervention Masterclass where you'll learn exactly how to fit in randomized formative assessment in a meaningful and safe way.